
Class. 
Book.^Iin.SLgA 



Copyright]^" 



.9 !3 



COPYRrCHT DEPOSIT. 



REVISIONS OF 

AND 

ADDITIONS TO 
THE POEMS AND SONNETS 

OF , 

UjitAND JP R. STRONG 






y!/rs longa, vita brev'ts 



PRIVATELY PRINTED 
AT THE RIVERSIDE PRESS 






COPYRIGHT, I913, BY JOHN R. STRONG 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



SEVENTY-FIVE COPIES PRINTED 
NO 



OCI.A350785 



THK FIRF.SIDF. 
IN A NORTH-HAST STORM 

L. C. S. 
(1901) 

The daylight wanes, 'mid heavy clouds 
Darkness and night come on apace; 

I sit before the cheerful hre; 

Home is the safest, surest place. 

Now howls the storm-wind through the trees, 

Anon in distant, echoing roar. 
The sea, resounding, makes reply 

As dash the surges on the shore. 

The smouldering log upon the hearth 

Flickers uncertain, fitfully. 
The room is full of silent forms, 

All vague, half-seen and shadowy. 

Then blend mv thoughts with wind and wave 
And wistfully I view the past, 



And think of things that might have been ; 
While down the chimney roars the blast. 

Now comes a lull. I hear \vithout 
A tapping on the window-glass, 

And childish voices raised in play, 
And scurrying footsteps on the grass. 

The children call for entrance free, 
Fling door and windows open wide ; 

Room for the Brownies of the house ! 
They bring luck to the fireside. 

They enter now, a merry troop. 

Capering in unrestrained glee. 
With busy hands they stir the fire, 

Then cluster, laughing, round my knee. 

A stronger gust blows out the flame; 

Startled, I gaze about the room ; 
All, all is silence, emptiness, 

The corners filled with shadowy gloom. 



What were the sounds I heard outside. 
The tapping on my window-pane. 

The fairy footsteps on the grass? 

'T was but the pattering of the rain. 

But where those faces, loved e'en now. 

Bright with the sun of childhood's beams. 

The laughing eyes, the rosy lips? 

They never lived — except in dreams. 

On wings of wind these visions come, 
As leaves before the tempest blown ; 

A moment pause; like timid birds. 

Ere I can grasp them, they have flown. 

The wind is stilled, the rain falls fast ; 

Real voices sound, a candle gleams; 
Enter both Light and Love at last ; 

Better reality — than dreams ! 



MINUETTO 

(Rcritcd, I9i>) 

So is it not, thou perfect maid, thy worth 
To be compared with aught of land or sea, 
For they of choice-impressed, half-fair Earth, 
Unequal, bend in perfect truth to thee. 
The shining light of Heaven, raging clouds 
Do check in action ; even gentle air, 
A devastating whirlwind, meadows shrouds, 
Whose labour falls, a moment earlier fair. 
But thou, a form of Nature and of Mind, 
Choosest that thou for mastering Time must be, 
So thy perfection, to th' imperfect kind, 
Shows like a diamond for the world to see. 
Lo ! he, who would this diamond bear away. 
Let him o'er rivals be, else single stay. 



TREE'S RELIGION 

(Revised, 1912) 

The tree that glassed itself into the pool. 
Its delicate, feathery arms saw in the bowl. 
If such it had ; not human was its school, 
Though in its attitude it might teach a soul. 
Intruded in the depths of mirrored world 
It saw its image, baseless as a dream. 
Perhaps it knew itself; its wealth unfurled 
Seemed like a labor in the peaceful stream. 
And, too, a likeness pure. Here, it is strange. 
Two such ideas co-mix ; here, too, it wist 
That counterpart serene that, without change 
Or toil, suggests a better world we list. 
If such insight had trees, so long ago. 
Think that a mystery lies in all we know. 



IN MEMORIAM 

H. R. 

Ob. May, 1882 
(Revised, 191 2) 

As Phaeton pressed toward the Sun, to take 
His sky-ascending steeds, that, blessing us. 
Bring forth the glorious light where dawn doth 

break. 
To chase away night black and troublous. 
So, Hermann, thy adytum tenebrous 
In fields Elysian, after that sad lake. 
Clear SpofFord's Lake, stood after thou didst make 
Attempt at what on Earth is glorious. 
Here know we naught exceeds thy passing thus, 
Save perilous days ; let, then, the major stake 
Be granted thine, for thou, laborious. 
Didst lift us with thy tones from conflict's ache. 
Meet we again ! in Nature nebulous 
Word limits not, nor quill, nor calamus. 



THE LUMBER-WOODS 

(Revised, 19 ix) 

Among our musical tops the breezes lie down, 
About our golden arms they hourly play ; 
Who liveth to our beauty owns our sky-crown. 
His mind avows that grandeur every day. 
Like venom-gilded snake the woodman glideth. 
For littlest gold 'gainst forest kings there sent. 
And with his steel his will he so provideth 
That, as he grows, is Nature's beauty spent. 
Oft jocund is his camp, and strong his hand, 
Yet as a fell disease his progress marreth ; 
Albeit his habitations grace the land. 
Yet harmfully his hand the greenwood scarreth. 
Away, thou careless harvester ! Thy laws 
Are worse, in forest right, than serpent's jaws. 



SPRING 

(Revised, 19 12) 

Lo, now the oxen come in furrowed fields. 
The blackbird sings, and calls his perching mate. 
The winds are still, where any hillock shields. 
And Spring hath now her gifts to arbitrate. 
The mountains put off Winter ; they 're for Man, 
And forward as his allies ; on their sides 
Th' esquiring zephyrs hasten with their plan 
Of vaulting heraldry and green Summer's prides. 
" Thus hath it ever been," the farmer says. 
And whistles to his team right joyfully ; 
The forests echo thousand thousand ways. 
While babbling streamlets chatter what 's to be. 

None are like thee, O Spring ! th' abundant 
lays 

Of birds innumerable do adorn thy days. 



THK MATTKRHORN 

(RevUcd, I9i>) 

The Matterhorn ! It has not seen its like 
In all the Alps, since first the Alps were known. 
It has within itself the things which strike 
The imagination, for it is alone. 
When first I saw its shape I stooped my knee, 
And said, ** Such is the form that heroes make ; 
There is no other in the world like thee. 
Thou glorious shape, to so the world forsake ! " 
But when the moonlight falls on thee apace, 
And in thy heights a shadowy thought thou art. 
The eye that seeth thee in wondrous place 
Doth think that stone may have a spirit's part. 

There is no mountain shape, the Alp-lands 
know. 

As thou there art, alone above the snow. 



THE MATTERHORN 

(Revised, 1912) 

The Matterhorn : when I do end my days 
May I within thy turning shadow lay. 
That, after work, when these sad eyes do glaze, 
Upon thy throne may rest my lifeless clay. 
Thus at thy feet may I my cares assuage. 
My cares, my life, for such my cares sure are. 
To wait while slide the same way age on age 
As avalanches slide, the Spring being far. 
Now ever, while is time, my thoughts do climb 
To where that giddy pinnacle fronts the sky ; 
There can I wander sadly in my prime ; 
So, when is time, that Lord of graves to buy. 

So there my steps may find their final end; 

So, in that end, to find what all attend. 



ro sAruRN 

(Revucd, 191a) 

Saturn, when I see thy light afar 

1 grope how with such Hght this world agrees, 
Or what it is that makes thy wonder, star, 
Where thou residest o'er our waving trees. 
Who diggeth with his hands the tlintv heart 
Ot this too ohdurate mother findeth less. 

At last, than graves are, but thy untouched chart 
Showeth like hope, though placed in hopeless- 
ness. 
As do men's hopes deflect and aye heart's bloom 
Declines, so doth thy beauty quiver there. 
Thee saveth constancy ; such is our doom. 
Half-based on vSorrow; so, too, thou dost wear. 
Thv posting beam doth give this thought n 

place ; 
Whatever be the truth, it has that grace. 



VENICE 

(Revised, 191 2) 

Venice, thou gemmed island, be new found. 
As once thou wert ; the Eastern, golden seas 
Dowered thee thy carved arches, as the breeze 
Echoed thy victory down to Saracen ground. 
Here flung away, once wedded, saddest mound. 
Thy thronged Rialto, captives on their knees. 
And lion-bird, are told of but by these, 
A sunset-memory of the renowned. 
So, o'er the flood, the fixed and pondering eye 
Sees domes of cloud and towers of sunset's gold, 
A palaced, painted city in the sky. 
Where rolling clouds, o'er furthest Ocean rolled. 
Fleck dark the sea. The present is to sigh ; 
What still remains scarce breathes, a tale nigh 
told 



"MOLLY" 

(RcvHcd, 1(^11) 

The cat has caught a mouse, and, having ted, 

Plays with it, and this is not for teed. 

Oft, in her chase, she idly let him speed 

Out of her soft, white paws, but, ere he sped. 

Nabbed him ; he 'scaped, (she let hiinj six times 

in dread, 
In a high hush called "Bridal Wreath;" in 

need 
Twice a high stalk he climbed ; w ith dexterous 

heed 
She knocked him down ; at last, when gasping 

dead. 
She tossed and played with him, at moment's 

pause 
Sitting beside iiini like a Sphinx. I ilccni 
This act a microscopic one, whose laws 
Steal like a horror on my nerves, which teem 
PVom top to toe, a passing shadow cause 
To riv o'er the Sun — is this truth or dream r 



QUESTION 

(Revised, 1912) 

And yet, what 's in ourselves of utter rout 
Of Fancy's shaping ? Every mind of thought 
Deems as a treasure all that Good has taught. 
Distressed by the coastless chart of doubt, 
Convinced by neither, for the snaky knout 
Hangs over fortunes, and there lives not aught 
But quarrels for subsistence ; ill lives, wrought 
Into the strife of life, no life without. 
For this present, the mind on tosses, driven 
Through hopes and fears, a sea at hopeless war, 
A virtue seeming like a rescue stolen. 
What is the future, when the law, our star, 
Shines not to Eternity and Heaven, 
Alike inconceivable, as we are ? 



FOl'R SONXKTS 

1 

THE UNHAPPY PARADISE 

(Mjy-July, 1906. Rrtitrd, 1911) 

I Stand alone, no God in sight. 
The worm corrodes and nothing stands; 
\\ ith ritt, that sears in hope's despite. 
And pitfalls, lie the sunlit lands. 
Contention rules; the Ocean's sands 
In grating murmur tell their right ; 
Let all he done that may with hands. 
At last force ends and rests in night. 
Attracting vision, sense-web spun, 
'Twixt Past and Future whirl its days. 
Best for its purpose, worse than none. 
Limbed like the deer, mv speed betrays, 
Yet, transformed safe, I 'd ne'er have done 
To thread its glades, to learn its ways. 



II 

TO MY SON 

(July, 1906) 

My boy, who nothing of your years have known, 
In nonage yet, who through glassed streams will 

fare. 
And to the ragged hills bring steps that dare. 
And thus elide the traces of my own. 
Who will among the flowers set your throne. 
And find beneath the rose its jagged snare. 
O'er all the solid world the slow ploughshare. 
And see where in the soil the harvest 's sown, 
Now that the night of age fore-gives his sign. 
And I, amid the dusk, have all or none, 
I would not take your length of years for mine. 
Be guided, and when that last Westering sun 
Shall leave the sky, its beautified decline 
Shall seem to show the course that you have run. 



Ill 

TO G. T. S. Ill 

(Wrinen for my wife, August, 1906) 

My boy, who nothing of your years have known, 
Yet all in nonage, now the glorious face 
Of Nature and her smile of endless grace 
Open your notice ; now in you are grown 
^'oung budding muscles and soon will be shown 
\'our utmost strength ; now for your feet the race 
That gives the prize, for you the wrestler's place, 
Odysseus' mind, Achilleus' hand to throne. 
So, high in prudence stand, and take the mind 
The first of all things, for, from out its hall. 
Come acts as from a press, with worth assigned; 
Then, on the field stand forth to catch the ball, 
So of the City's prize, and ever find 
To be among the first your joy in all. 



IV 

AFTER 

(1907) 

Ah, broken heart, repine not as thou wouldst. 
Lest out of all thy mind thy nature fail ; 
Remember not the hours missed, the vale. 
Wherein deep sorrows lie, of what thou shouldst. 
For, as the clock tells minutes, and thou couldst 
Have watched them as thy pulse, so never sail. 
Nor row, nor woodland walk did thee avail, 
And then the lightning struck thee as thou 

stood'st. 
As Peter did his inward dawn destroy. 
And then he went out and wept bitterly. 
So I hope for forgiveness in some while. 
There yet I trust, beholding her in joy. 
Amid God's angels throned, so fair to see. 
To ask for recognition and her smile. 



CHILDRKN'S VKKSKS 

(Speonk, 1908) 
I 

TO ROBERT, CHARLES, ALFRED 
AND HERBERT RICE 

DARKNESS OVER THE COTTAGE 

The little boys are all asleep, 

Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle; 

O'erspread in night the stars watch keep. 

Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle. 

All the toys are put away, 

All the joyful law of fun, 

All with sleep and dreams to stay. 

All forgot when day is done. 

Underneath each downy quilt 

Lies a little gleam of right, 

Nature's miracle, like stars' gilt 

In the blackness of the night. 

May each little head have peace 
And stars allied till darkness cease. 



II 

TO MISS ELIZABETH W. RICE 

(Rondeau d'apres Voiture) 

Elizabeth is capricious, O, 

She smiled upon me, and I know 

For one more smile I 'd dance cotill — 
Ion upon the lawn, though bill — 
Ion of aches should lay me low. 

The next Sun rose ; what did it show. 
When I came forth to be her Beau? 
Her face showed ill, as at a pill: 

Elizabeth is capricious. 

Another Sun — I came, well, lo, 
" Once half the firm I scarce was Co.," 
My glances met not glances still 
But calm disdain — O help, my skill ! 
Elizabeth is three, but, so, 

Elizabeth is capricious. 



AUG 13 1913 



